NATO begins debating future of U.S. tactical nukes in Europe from Nukes & Spooks by Jonathan Landay

NATO begins debating future of U.S. tactical nukes in Europe
from Nukes & Spooks by Jonathan Landay

NATO foreign ministers began debating today in Tallinn, Estonia, the future of the estimated 240 tactical nuclear weapons that the United States maintains in Europe nearly 20 years after the end of the Cold War.

Germany is leading a handful of the 28 NATO members in calling for the removal of the aircraft-delivered B-61 gravity bombs from the five European countries where they are deployed, believing that they are no longer required for the defense of Europe. But that argument is unlikely to prevail.
The Obama administration and some other NATO governments now value the weapons more for their political utility than their military worth, seeing them as instruments for maintaining unity within an alliance that is increasingly at odds over a wealth of issues, ranging from Afghanistan to defense spending levels.

The U.S. tactical nukes "combined with NATO's unique nuclear sharing arrangements under which non-nuclear members participate in nuclear planning and possess specifically configured aircraft capable of delivering nuclear weapons, contribute to Alliance cohesion and provide reassurance to allies and partners who feel exposed to regional threats," says the administration's new Nuclear Posture Review.

NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen asserted at a news conference that the U.S. nukes are also required "as long as there are rogue regimes or terrorist groupings that may pose a nuclear threat to us."

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was expected to tell her NATO colleagues that the future of the weapons should be decided as part of a new NATO doctrine, known as the New Strategic Concept, that is to be unveiled when NATO heads of state gather in November in Lisbon, Portugal.

Finally, the administration appears unwilling to give up bargaining chips it could use in negotiations it wants to hold with Moscow on eliminating the vastly numerically superior arsenal of short-range tactical nuclear weapons that Russia still maintains.